Lifestyle

The organisers of a charity rugby game in Sixmilebridge on St Stephen’s Day hope to raise over €2,000 for Milford Care Centre, Limerick.Casey’s Angels, which comprised patrons of Casey’s Bar, Sixmilebridge, defeated Den’s Devils, which included friends of Danny Gallagher, who runs the O2 mobile phone shop in Shannon, 9-3 after a very entertaining game in the School Field, Sixmilebridge.Over €1,700 has already been collected from sponsorship cards and the organisers are very hopeful of reaching their target of over €2,000.Refereed by Paddy Mulready, the match was the brainwave of Dave Fielding and Joe Hogan to raise money for Milford Hospice. A video of the game was shown in Casey’s Pub later that evening and also featured on YouTube.Sixmilebridge publican Anne Casey said she was delighted with the response to what proved to be a great fun event.“It was a great idea and it was great to raise so much money for a good cause. If the event is organised …

Three good fairies gathered to bestow special gifts on the newborn. If I had such powers, I’m not sure which gift I’d choose to give. Ideally, I wish I could present everyone with a set of skills to cope with “life, love and the whole damn thing”.How to decide the order of importance in which I’d place such talents? Well, the ability to adapt, grow and accept the changes that life inevitably brings would definitely be foremost. Coincidentally, the name Aurora means dawn – most appropriate because at the dawn of the new year, I wish to record a little fable demonstrating the importance of personal growth. A man visited his doctor, stating, “My eyes are bulging, I feel I’m choking and my tongue protrudes constantly.” Upon examination, the doctor suggested that the removal of his tonsils should alleviate the dreadful symptoms. Having recovered from the surgery, the man returned to the doctor immediately, complaining that his problems persisted. Puzzled, …

The Census returns for 1901 and 1911 can be read online and you will occasionally see differences in the ages recorded for the same people. Some seem to have aged more than 10 years between both censuses. This might have some connection with the fact that the old age pension, for those over 70, was introduced in 1909 and an extra few years helped.One applicant in Limerick said he believed he was 60 but that a number of his neighbours persuaded him he was 70, so he applied and got the pension. By March, over 80,000 had applied and, of those, 70,000 were in Ireland. This led to an investigation.Not many births were registered in Ireland before the 1860s, so some other means had to be devised to establish the applicant’s age. One of the tests was to ask if the applicant was alive on the “Night of the Big Wind”. This was in 1839 so, if they were alive …

I recently observed, in the window of a shoe shop in a large Dublin shopping centre, an advertisement that read “buy one and get one free”. Shoes are normally sold in twos but I presume the owner meant “buy one pair and you get another pair free”. Advertising is necessary to draw the attention of potential customers to businesses that are not well enough known or to items or services that private individuals are offering for sale or which they hope to bring to the notice of the public. Some advertising can be quite costly, especially if it is not carefully thought out. Some can incur expenditure far beyond the real value of what is offered.Last week, for instance, I had to bin seven glossy inserts offering the same television-related product; this has been going on for some time. One has to question the morality of the use of huge quantities of expensive paper to put over a message which, …

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A NUMBER of researchers have been credited with inventing the radio. Names such as Marconi, Stubblefield and Fesseden have been mentioned but as far as a few hundred people in far scattered parts of the world are concerned, the name they will always associate with the basic radio is that of a Clare-born Irish Christian Brother.

PEOPLE who are still feeling the effects of flooding shouldn’t be at all reluctant to ask for assistance, according to President Mary McAleese, who visited Ennis just before Christmas.She said the response to the crisis had been outstanding and expressed her admiration for all who worked on it.“I want to say a very big thank you to all the people when faced with the very worst that nature could throw at them, did their very, very best. Their best for each other, the best for their community, the best to ensure that nobody would be injured or hurt and that people who were desperately overwhelmed would know that they were not alone and that there was a community that would care for them.”The innate kindness of the public was seen in how they responded, she felt.“This was a problem for all of us and the pain, suffering and loss being endured was something that people cared deeply about and wanted …

BY the time Pope John Paul II flew out of Shannon on October 1, 1979, around 2.5 million people had seen him, including many thousands from Clare, and the Irish State had successfully negotiated a massive security headache.